Realigning Metrics of Economic Well-Being in Residential and Commercial Development Through Sustainable Land Use Planning

This brief essay assesses the key role that environmental conservation plays in achieving stability in housing markets. The essay reiterates the many calls for a shift away from metrics of economic growth — like Gross Domestic Product and New Home Starts — that are currently fundamentally at odds with the protection of global natural capital, and that in particular threaten the non-renewable land base. The essay argues that while work should continue to change the ex-post metrics that we utilize to determine economic well-being within nations, the ex-ante use of more stringent land use regulatory controls can actually obviate the urgency to adjust those metrics by decoupling the replacement of natural capital from metrics of economic growth